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From Archilochus to modern greek

Μελέτες-Articles

• Λιαπής, Β.

The Modern Greek word κωθώνι (= 1) «inexperienced and clumsy military recruit» 2) «stupid, fool») derives from the ancient Greek word χώθων, whose primary meaning was «drinking vessel used by soldiers» (the word is first attested in Archil. 3. 10 D.-4. 6 W.). The military sense of the word has been preserved in Modern Greek, too, in which κωθώνι has come to denote, by metonymy, the user (= soldier) instead of the object used (=drinking vessel); cf. the colloquialism «παλιά καραβάνα». The meaning «stupid, fool» seems to have developed from the original military sense by way of a semantic broadening that could be explained on the basis of the proverbial clumsiness (and naiveté) of recruits. The lack of textual evidence for the survival of the military meaning of the word in medieval Greek is probably a mere accident, as, on the one hand, such a meaning does undeniably survive in the modern Greek κώθωνας («metal vessel used by seamen at breakfast»; cf. κώθων=“οηρ” in the dialect of Cappadocia) and, on the other, the Modern Greek vernacular preserves numerous words of ancient Greek origin that are not attested in medieval texts.

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κλασικές γλώσσες, νέα ελληνική γλώσσα

Το παρόν άρθρο, καθώς και η παλιότερη φοιτητική εργασία του Β. Λιαπή στην οποία βασίζεται, δεν θα είχαν γραφεί χωρίς την πολύτιμη καθοδήγηση του καθηγ. κ. Ιω.-Θεοφ. Α. Παπαδημητρίου, τον οποίο ευχαριστεί θερμά. Αν τυχόν απομένουν λάθη, παραλείψεις ή ατέλειες αυτά αποτελούν αποκλειστικά δική του ευθύνη.